


In The Tangerine-Stained Night

by Hecate_Mist



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Fix-It, Fluff, If you think I oughta add to the tags let me know and I will, M/M, Podfic Welcome, changing junos dumb decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-05 19:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17331278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate_Mist/pseuds/Hecate_Mist
Summary: Short fix-it fic for the end of Final Resting Place. Juno takes too much onto himself sometimes, and talking it though might help him see that he's being a huge idiot.





	1. In Which a Midnight Escape Is Averted

The orange-neon glow of streetlights filtering through half-closed blinds. The distant wail of sirens and the far closer wail of alley cats. The clean scent of hotel cleaning products mingled with perfume. His perfume.

I wanted to stay. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t justify staying, couldn’t justify a life that was so…

So easy.

Easy isn’t a life. Easy means you’ve cheated. Easy means you’re breaking the rules of how things are and some day when you least expect there’ll be dues to pay. Because life isn’t easy. Life is tough, and hard, and means you have to face yourself everyday with the knowledge of what you did the day before. And if I’m being honest… easy scares me. Scares me good. Because it wasn’t easy for me in the past and you can bet the Prince of Mar’s sapphire earrings that it won’t be easy for me in the future either. Better to bite the bullet and leave. He doesn’t need some mangy P.I. dragging him down, anyway.

I slip out from under the covers and the cool air makes goose-flesh rise on my arms. Standing slowly, my head only spins a little bit. The bandage that Aknan nurse applied to my eye has stayed on remarkably well through the night. I manage locate all of my clothes except one sock. Good enough. I glance behind at the king size bed to check on him. He hasn’t moved.

At the door I hesitate. But… No. No, I’m leaving. Press the keycard to the built-in sensor on the door and into the tangerine-stained night I g--

_Where’s the damn keycard?_

I pat down my pockets. Nothing.

“Rude of you, not to wake me. You might’ve at least told me you were leaving.”

“I--” I spin to face him. Or try to. But there are slender-fingered hands at my waist, and I’m not inclined to bowl him over just to look him in the eye. He must have crossed the room in complete silence while I was distracted. He inclines his head against mine, leaning down slightly to rest his chin on my shoulder.

“Juno, I’m no fool. And I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go. But at least stay until morning. Give me that much.”

How can I reply, really? I turn then, and his hands loosen to accomodate me. We’re practically cheek-to-cheek. His eyes bore into mine, darker than any liquor legal in Hyperion bars. I nod, the movement almost jerky. Where on earth did that come from? He steps back, his left hand trailing along my right arm before pulling me by the wrist. Away from the door and towards the small seating area.

I could pull away. I could still leave. Go back to the office. Take another case, and then another and another until I’m old and grey or dead.

I let Peter Nureyev pull me along in his wake.


	2. In Which Coffee Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter makes coffee and Juno tries his damndest to let out thoughts he's kept in for... maybe decades, if he'd being honest.

Nureyev pushes me softly into one of the raised seats by the countertop and lets go of my wrist. His fingers linger there for a moment and then he’s rooting around in the tiny refrigerator of complementary junk. He’s wearing his shirt, which hangs down nearly to his mid-thigh. It’s wrinkled from where it had lain on the floor. If he had time to put on a shirt… he must had been awake already when I'd gotten up.

He apparently finds what he's looking for in the fridge - a fist-sized black packet with tacky gold lettering. He spoons the contents out into a old conversion machine that had seen better days, its laminate surface peeling off to reveal the cheap metal frame. Shiny and expensive looking on the outside, but cheap and dull as anything else underneath it all...

“How do you take your coffee, Juno?”

“Erm… what?”

He pauses and glances at me. “Coffee?” he repeats.

“Oh, right. Sorry, I zoned out a bit. Coffee, that’s the dark Terran drink, right?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Then I don't really drink coffee.”

“That's alright. Do you dislike the taste?”

“Not really,” I shrug. “I just don't buy it much, and then it's mostly for Rita.”

Nureyev nods thoughtfully. “Is there a drink you do like?”

I don't drink much at all — hydration has always taken a backseat to cases. Except —   “Whiskey?”

His lips quirk and he snorts slightly. “I’ll make yours a bit weaker then. How does milk and two sugars sound?”

I shrug again. “Sure.”

Nureyev shakes his head a little, a bemused smile on his face.

Silence falls between us as the conversion machine changes the gritty coffee powder into something hypothetically drinkable. He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he empties dehydrated creamer and sucrose cubes into two of the bio-cups provided by the hotel and pours in the now liquid, steaming coffee. He slides a cup down the counter to me. I catch it.

“Nureyev—”

“It’s alright. Just drink.”

I frown, but he’s already sipping his coffee. Warmth from mine is seeping through the thin material of the bio-cup to heat my hands. I drink; it’s slightly too-hot and it’s bitter. It’s a good deal better than I thought it would be.

 

* * *

 

 

“Last night… Earlier. We both said some things.” He tilts his head ever so slightly. We’re sitting on the bed, the coverlet laid out beneath us in an approximation of neatness. “What changed?”

“Nothing I just—” I take a deep breath. I can do this, I can tell Nureyev. He might not understand but then again he might. It’s not as if we haven’t already been through hell together. And yet…  “I just couldn’t.”

“Why not? Is there something keeping you here?”

I hesitate, then nod. “...yeah.” I can manage to say that much. Good.

“Okay.   Are you able to tell me what or who that is, Juno?”

I want to. I think, in some ways, I need to. If not tell Nureyev, then tell someone. Anyone. It doesn’t even matter if they care. I just need to say it. Just need to get the words out, to have another person know the truth. The embarrassing, impossible to avoid truth. But I can’t put it into words somehow. I open my mouth to reply to him and it’s like there's a hand at my throat, choking off all my air. I don’t know how to say it.

Nureyev is watching me, his eyes soft and warm as he regards my face, my shoulders tense and barely still. How well can he read me? — pretty well, I’d guess.  I’m feeling slightly desperate. If I can’t tell Peter Nureyev, in this moment, about the ridiculous crushing dread I feel when I think about a life beyond Hyperion, beyond everything I’ve ever known and everything I’ve convinced myself was important and necessary and, at the end of the day, what I deserved… If I couldn’t say anything about how what Alessandra would call a “martyr complex” was the only thing that made sense… If I couldn’t just spit it out, tell him... If I… If I…

My shoulders shake and my hands tighten into fists bunching up the coverlet’s fabric. “I don’t know. I just don't know. I can’t—”

Nureyev hugs me. Slowly, gently, undeniably present and real. “It’s okay.”

He is warm. His breath brushes over my skin and I try to focus on the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest. We stay there for a long time, I think. The light outside doesn’t change, but that’s no indicator of time in Hyperion City.

After a comfortable eon Nureyev speaks. “What I said last night is the truth, Juno. I have fallen deeply in love with you. I would gladly travel light years, and I would just as gladly stay here, as long as I have you by my side. I know it’s hopelessly cliché, but after all… there’s something to be said for cliché. I dearly want to show you the stars, Juno, the wonderful shining stars. But you don’t have to leave Hyperion forever, you know. We can return just as easily as we can leave.”

He toys with a loose curl of hair that hangs down over the bandage across my forehead. I close my eye and lean into the touch almost unconsciously. He continues. “Would it suit to go on a short trip, while we both recover? I know I won’t be up to much for the next few weeks.”

I think about it. His embrace is warm and natural, and his perfume…  It doesn’t smell like home. It is wild and intoxicating and unforgettable. But. It’s also familiar, and welcoming, and ironically trustworthy.

“Yes,” I say. “I think that’d be good.”

 

My name is Juno Steel and I have a lot of questions. I don’t know many answers. I have  a lot of issues, too. Hyperion City is my city, my home, and I don’t think I could ever abandon it, not if I lived to be as old as the galaxy. But…

I could stand to take a break with Peter Nureyev. Chase a couple promises, and see the stars.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm to be honest as well, I don't love how this turned out. I rushed into the first chapter without referencing back to the original story, and so I spent a month trying to pick up the pieces and fit them into a coherent chapter two. But, y'know... It's done now, and by all the stars in the sky I'm gonna be proud of it.
> 
> Please feel free to comment below and tell me what you enjoyed! Thank you ever so much for reading.
> 
> If you want to see more of me you can follow my tumblr @hecate-mist or just hang around here. I'll be back - you can count on it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] In The Tangerine-Stained Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787902) by [nonlineardogtime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonlineardogtime/pseuds/nonlineardogtime)




End file.
